The XActly mailbox is starting to fill up with interesting questions from our wide readership throughout the X10 community. Before you decide to storm my office overlooking the local waste dump, perhaps I should answer some of your tough questions:

I haven’t always been an idiot. Before I was kidnapped by aliens and forced on the the X10 Web site to search for bargains, I was a God-fearing Christian who loved his children, contributed a lot to the community and sometimes spent a little extra time on http://www.nationalgeographic.com. Now, I fear I’m in this strange relationship with that Midnight Bandit fellow. My sheep are starting to notice something.
- Bill in Missoula, Montana.

Dear Bill:

Hey, the nights are short in Missoula this time of year, and you have to kind of grab life by the horns. Be careful, however. Those rams can get touchy.

How “active” does my home have to be in order to acquire one of those “Active Home” systems? Except for taking the beer cans and the garbage to the trash once a week, we don’t have much activity around this house. Do I have to smoke some of those funny cigarette my kid keeps talking about to make my home “active” enough? If so, which end of the cigarette do I light?
- Gomer in Dubuque, Iowa.

Dear Gomer:

If your home hasn’t been very active, the Active Home system can make it so. Consider: “Captain’s log, August 10, 2006. The transporter brought us to the crossroads of cheese and corn. Here we boldly entered a home where no galactic force had gone before. Earthlings merely had to push buttons to light his way down a dark hallway. With one small light, a plantation of indoor vegetation was being energized by something he called ‘grow lights.’ The lights had been programmed to darken our path as we stepped through the house. ” Chances are you will live long and prosper in this Active Home.